For you sauna-savvy folks - calories burned?

[channlluv]

Hi, ladies,

I'm curious about whether or not to count the calories I may or may not be burning in the steam sauna at the Y after my swim workouts. I'll do 30 minutes in the pool, then 15 - 30 minutes in the sauna, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

Someone in the sauna mentioned that we were burning 400 - 600 calories for a half hour in there, more than a half hour on the rowing machine. Now, I am sweating a lot in there, but burning calories? Maybe in the most technical biochemical, my-heart-rate-is-up-there sense, but it's not equivalent to an actual workout, is it?

I'm just wondering if I should be adding these sauna calories as calories burned in my Lose It! program, the same as I'm adding in the swim, bike, and elliptical workouts.

What do you think? Do they count?

The Norwegian lady who joined me in the sauna today was telling me it's great for general health, and especially for eliminating heavy metals.

I read online that it somehow melts fat cells and eliminates toxins trapped in those fat cells. That I'm not too sure about.

I'd love some input here from you sauna-savvy friends.

Thanks!

Roxy

Thanks!
Roxy

[softthings]

sounds too good to be true. you might lose water weight through all the sweating, which would quickly come back. you are better off doing cardio or lifting weights to build muscle, muscle torches fat. when you work out, you burn more cals even when resting. i'm sure you would find lots of opinions if you googled it.

[tulip]

You'll lose water, and it's very important to stay hydrated, particularly if you are going to the sauna that often. Burning calories happens by moving, not by sitting. I think your sauna-mate was thinking wishfully.

Just enjoy it, drink plenty of water, but don't count on burning calories in there.

[Zen]

You're sitting, you're not burning calories.
Your body is cooling itself by sweating. I have no idea of actual calories used by this inactivity but I'm gonna guess the number o jelly beans in the jar and say 50 tops.

Calories are used as fuel for cellular respiration. Or I should say they are a unit of energy used during activity.
See electron transport chain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_respiration)

Nothing "melts fat cells". We are born with a certain number of fat cells. These cells can change size but they never disappear.

[zoom-zoom]

If anything I wonder if your body would burn fewer calories in a sauna. I know trying to stay warm in a cold room burns more calories at rest than sitting in a comfortable room. So I'm thinking sitting in a sauna isn't going to burn more and maybe even fewer.

[badger]

I use the sauna to stretch after my swim. Granted the sauna that's at the aquatic centre isn't terribly hot, so it's kind of like Bikram's. It's a way for me to unwind and warm up. Sometimes I look forward to the sauna more than the workout itself!!

I'm not sure if there's really any weight loss perks for it, but millions of Scandinavians can't be wrong!!

[gnat23]

Just because you're sweating doesn't mean you're working out, or even working out that much harder.

(As someone once told me in an overheated spinning class sans fan -- I swear there was a small lake beneath me)

-- gnat!

[channlluv]

Well, phooey. I knew it was too good to be true. Alas.

Still, it feels good. I like the idea of eliminating heavy metals, too, and whatever other toxins are pushed out of my body with all that sweat.

I'm trying to get in 30 minutes of cardio every day on top of the Core Performance workouts. According to the basic numbers, I should be dropping 3 pounds per week, but I'm not.

I've seen an endocrinologist and we've started the hormone testing. We'll see if it leads anywhere. So far, everything comes out normal.

Roxy

[zoom-zoom]

According to the basic numbers, I should be dropping 3 pounds per week, but I'm not.

I've seen an endocrinologist and we've started the hormone testing. We'll see if it leads anywhere. So far, everything comes out normal.

Roxy

I hear this. It makes it very difficult to lose weight when doing everything right yields no losses (my hubby jokes that I have the most adaptive metabolism he has ever seen). It's hard to stick to the straight-and-narrow when there is no movement on the scale and one feels hungry all the time.

I had my thyroid checked a few years back and was on the low end of normal...but a couple of people I talked to said that some doctors would treat me for mild hypothyroidism with my #s. I will probably ask about getting a second opinion from an endo if my #s are borderline next time.

I hope you get some answers and see progress soon.

[michelem]

Hi Roxy,

You mentioned the endo thing, and I thought I'd share with you a great blog:
www.incyst.com

Even if you don't have PCOS (I don't), it's a wealth of great nutritional information.

Good luck to you! :)

[channlluv]

Michelle, thank you so much. I was diagnosed with PCOS in September, whihc is to say, my doctor confirmed I've got eight of the 12 symptoms and started medicating me for it, since there's not a real test to confirm the condition itself.

The endo I saw a week ago upped my Metformin dosage. That will take a while to kick in, but we'll see. Meanwhile, I'm waiting on test results.

I'll go check out that blog. It looks like something I really need to read.

And thanks, everyone else, for the love, support, and commiseration. It's so hard when all my best friends are training for tris and marathons and stuff, and I'm stuck on the sidelines because my joints can't handle running with my weight, so I'm facing constant knee and ankle injuries, and in the pool, yesterday, an old woman rehabbing a hip outswam me. Oy vey.

Roxy

[zoom-zoom]

Ahhh...PCOS. I know a couple of women who deal with that and they really struggle with their weight, in addition too all of the other tough symptoms. Roxy, I hope the meds increase help your metabolism. I recall when one friend was first diagnosed that it took quite a long time to figure out what dosage her body required to get on-track.

[Biciclista]

I'd like to see something scientific that says you sweat out heavy metals too.

[Grog]

PCOS s*cks. You're one tough gal. Even if you're not losing weight, you're getting stronger and fitter. Celebrate that and keep it going! Good luck - and many positive thoughts your way.

[channlluv]

I'd like to see something scientific that says you sweat out heavy metals too.

All I have to go on is the word of the very beautiful 50-something Norwegian woman sitting next to me.

Roxy

[channlluv]

PCOS s*cks. You're one tough gal. Even if you're not losing weight, you're getting stronger and fitter. Celebrate that and keep it going! Good luck - and many positive thoughts your way.

Thank you. And that's why I keep trying, because one day, something is going to flip the switch and it will all come together.

My regret is that I wasn't in a better emotional place ten years ago when I was still young enough to have more children. I've lost five, and was in the depths of a pretty severe depression for the better part of a decade. I don't know how I survived it at all, to be honest.

I do have one miracle child, though - the OB listened to me when I told her I'd done a lot of research (read books, interviewed almost 100 women who'd suffered early-term miscarriages, too, and this was what they'd been diagnosed with, the ones who matched what happened to me) and I believed that I had corpus luteal defect. She listened and prescribed natural progesterone the next time I got pregnant, and believe me, I knew within two weeks of conception because of the changes in my body already. And my DD was born healthy. By the time I got pregnant again, that doctor had retired and I was on a different insurance plan, and the new doctors either didn't listen or just didn't believe I knew what I was talking about, and one even prescribed progesterone, but the pharmacy gave me synthetic, and it was in a dose too low to do anything to help. He was basically shutting me up, I think. But by then, I was too emotionally exhausted and depressed to fight back. It's my belief, though, that his actions are the direct cause of the death of at least one of my children. (I became his patient a little too far into the third pregnancy to do much about the progesterone deficiency because doctors won't see new patients until you're at least 8 weeks along, but the fourth one he could have saved.)

Anyway, yeah, there's a lot of emotional pain tied up in this body. That probably has something to do with the difficulty losing weight, too.

Roxy

[szsz]

Hugs, Roxy. You've been through a bunch.

We should meet at Fiesta one of these days. It's been too cold for me to venture out if you can believe that; I am the world's largest wuss.

Be well.

[Zen]

All I have to go on is the word of the very beautiful 50-something Norwegian woman sitting next to me.

Roxy

Is she a scientist? ;)